On Disasters and Popular Culture
Date
2000
Authors
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Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
When I agreed to participate in this panel on disasters and popular culture, I did so with
the anticipation that in the several months I would have to prepare, I would have some bright idea. I recall I did have a bright idea several months ago, but I forgot what it was. It obviously was not that bright. As time moved on, I became quite desperate since I did not think it appropriate to present a paper without an idea in it. Then it occurred to me that I might utilize ideas from books I was reading since authors who write books should have ideas. (Having authored several books, I do know that is a questionable but hopeful assumption) In any case, I
did try to exploit others to give me ideas about the possibilities of disaster and popular culture.
The first book I will mention is Hans Blumenberg. Shipwreck with Spectator:, Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence, (Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1997) Blumenberg, a German social theorist, has written extensively on myth and I had picked it up several times to read. He has a rather interesting argument. He argues that, in every culture, what escapes reality, life and history is handed over to long term work on images. And that one of the very persistent models is life as a sea voyage. "It encompasses the voyage out and the voyage home, the harbor and the foreign shore, anchorage and sailing the seas, storm and calm, distress at sea and shipwreck, barely surviving and merely looking on." (Introduction, p. 1)
Keywords
popular culture, disaster